Blog Archives

DAY 429

3/24/2018

Letter from Vermont

LISTENING
TO KIDS,
RETHINKING GUNS

DEAR CAT,
   JUST A NOTE to let you know we made it safely to Vermont, where Grouchy One and his sister grew up.
    I got to renew my friendship with Fozzie, Grouchy’s sister’s cat, who is very nice. Which is not meant as a criticism of "other" cats. But it is a relief to be around at least one who doesn’t lurk around corners, waiting with drawn claws to ambush an unsuspecting dog, or a cat who doesn’t wait on the stairs, blocking a dog’s safe passage to the second floor. Again, meaning nothing by way of comparison to “other” cats.

   THIS WAS THE DAY for the national “March for Our Lives” protest against gun violence, organized by high school students, so the Nice One, the Grouchy One and I went to the demonstration in Middlebury.
   I know that you think I’m a sucker for marches, protests and parades, but the fact is, while I’m likely to meet a couple of interesting dogs – strangely, no one seems to ever bring their cats – there’s a lot of other things I’d rather be doing than going to rallies, such as sleeping in the sun or sniffing out decaying road kill.
   But I was curious to see what kind of a turnout they’d get in Middlebury, which is a college town, and not exactly a place with a huge population to ensure a big turnout. There are only an estimated 8,500 estimated residents, and furthermore, its in a state with a strong gun culture.
   Really. Most outsiders probably don't think of Vermont as an AR-15 kind of place. But it is, or was, a big farming state, with huge forests and lots of deer and other tasty things to shoot, kill and eat, so guns have had a place in many homes.

   VERMONT MAY indeed be the most liberal state in the country – people stop their cars to let you cross the street even when you are just getting out of bed and haven’t even got your shoes on yet. And the last piece of roadside litter was spotted in Vermont was in 1936 in the town of Lyndon, where there is an official Historical Plaque marking the spot.
   But gun culture runs deep. Even Mr. Liberal himself, Bernie-I-Could-Have-Beaten-Trump -Sanders, the state's independent US. Senator has been squirrely about gun control.
   But the bottom line: a good 300 folks turned out for the noon demonstration on the Middlebury Town Green, and it was a heck of a crowd, too: a German shepherd, three golden retrievers and four black labs, some sort of border collie mix, who kept giving me the hairy eye and a very cute white furry thing the size of a half-eaten loaf of bread.
   As for the people, the crowd was really integrated agewise and in gender. Very cute little kids who LOVE sweet dogs like myself; mountain men with beards down to their knees; school kids; teachers (you could tell them because their signs were spelled correctly and said that they weren't looking forward to their students being gunned down in their classrooms), families pushing baby carriages, old people with walkers,- middle-aged ladies pushing petitions.
   Many progressive organizations were represented. In fact, there seemed to be a progressive organization for every 10 residents, from gun control groups, to a domestic violence outfit, a local chapter of Veterans Against Violence, Unitarians, of course, and I think one of the speakers was police officer, so it’s possible that in Vermont, some police departments count as reform nonprofits. A pediatrician spoke about guns being a public health crisis. Someone from Black Lives Matters spoke.
   It actually was quite moving. There was a high school student who said that since the Parkland, Florida shooting, where 17 people were murdered on Valentine’s Day, prompting students to embark on this massive and most hopeful surge of gun control advocacy, said that fire drills freak her out these days. And that when she goes to school, even though she's an ornery teenager, she actually kisses her mother goodbye on the chance that will be the last time she’ll see her before a gunman shows up during physics. Her voice almost breaking, she said it was time for Montpelier and Washington to act. to stop this madness. (For those of you who don't watch “Jeopardy," the correct question to the answer, "The capital of Vermont," is: "What is Montpelier?")

   SPEAKING OF VERMONT'S capital, one of the speakers, whom I think said her family was impacted by gun death, recalled going to a State House hearing on a gun bill years ago and found the room filled with people wearing "hunter’s orange,” and who jeered and shouted down the gun control advocates, and that those were the people that the committee listened to. Now, it was time for other, more reasoned, politer, voices to be heard.
   In fact, just a day ago, the Vermont House passed a bill that would raise the age of gun purchase to 21, limit gun magazine capacity to 10 rounds, mandate background checks on all would-be gun purchasers and ban bump stocks. That was after TEN hours of debate. The bill has a way to go, including final passage in the House, and then over to the Senate.
   A description of this bill drew loud chants from a portion of the crowd: "We want a ban. We want a ban," referring to a drive to outlaw military style weapons.
   Which even a sweet dog like myself found encouraging, rather than ungrateful, since this gun thing is a long-term issue, and it's good to see people committed to more solutions.
    At the same time, the Vermont bill shows the difference that savvy, articulate high school kids already have made.
   So, yes, Cat, I went to yet another demonstration, and it was inspiring, even though I’m sure you were glad to have stayed indoors back in Newport, just as Fozzie was content to have stayed home in a sun-filled room in Middlebury.
   Incidentally, we brought him home a “March for Our Lives” sign and he seemed grateful, just as I’m sure, Cat, you will be when we bring one for you on Monday, when we return from our super short visit to the Green Mountain State.

   MEANWHILE, TRUMP this week surrounded himself with advisors who aren't inclined to talk him out of first-strike attacks on North Korea and Iran and who aren’t all that bothered by the prospect of nuclear war.
    Well, one step at a time. The Middlebury demonstration started off with civil rights and peace movement anthems like “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “This Land is Your Land” and “Blowing in the Wind.”
    Those are voices and messages that presidents, even the loony ones, ignore at their peril.
   YOUR FAITHFUL
    CORRESPONDENT,

     PHOEBE

Day 424

3/19/2018

WHICH PARADE WILL WE MARCH IN:
ST. PATRICK'S?
OR D. TRUMP'S?

    “WHERE HAVE you been?” Cat wanted to know last Saturday.
    “The parade, of course,” I said.
    “I thought you didn’t like parades,” he said with that little cat smirk that means he’s about to say something mean. “All those muskets, bagpipes, and drums. Makes a dog nervous, I’m led to believe.”
    “Yes and no,” I said. “I obviously didn’t go by myself – the Nice One and the Grouchy One were with me. And we all agreed it was important to go this year, given Trump’s plan for a military parade in Washington in November.”
    “Explain,” Cat said. “But keep it short.”

   “As you know, or maybe you don't,” I said, “the Saint Patrick’s Day parade is probably the biggest parade of the year in Newport, and it always ends at the end of our street, just four houses down from ours.”
   “I didn’t mean to keep it that short – you still didn’t say why you wanted to go,” he prodded.
   For the contrast with the kind of parade Trump wants - a military parade," I said.
   "What's wrong with a military parade, as opposed to one for a saint?" he persisted.

   “Really, Cat?” I said.
   “Yup, seen one parade, seen them all, I’m thinking,” Cat said. “And given that Newport is a big Navy town, it’s likely that any parade here will be lots of military types marching.”
   “In fact,“ I said, “there was a Navy band, a contingent of Marines and even Army gentlemen and ladies. But the difference, Cat, is that in the Saint Paddy’s parade, there’s plenty of other people to see.”
   “For instance?”
   “You had the Shriners, in their miniature cars; high school and junior high school marching bands; bagpipers from the Hibernian Irish organization; 5 zillion fire trucks. Old fashioned trucks. Big ladder trucks, my favorites, personally. And some of them with dogs riding in the cabs up front.

   "AND THERE WERE many police departments, with their Incident Command Mobile Units; a guy on a unicycle; a guy walking on stilts; grownup elves; a bunch of pirates from Massachusetts – in fact, they were really HUGE pirates, with long beards, and pistols and knives swinging from their belts. Actually, the pirates seemed to be pretty nice, once you got to know them.”
    “You talked to a pirate?” Cat said, with a note approaching respect.
    “One of them talked to me,” I said. “But, of course, neither you nor I talk. It was the usual one-way of conversation. The pirate who seemed to be the head man said that I was very pretty dog. He may have even used the word ‘sweet.’ ”
   “That’s because he doesn’t have to live with you every day like I do,” Cat said. “Did you tell him there’s more to you than soft ears and a pink nose, that you are a stuck-up, selfish, bossy and very moody creature?”
   “There wasn’t really time to get into all of that,” I said.

   "ANYWAY, if there were the Navy, Army and Marines, what’s the difference between that and a military parade?” Cat said, actually getting back to his original point.
   “The difference, for one thing, is that the Newport parade one is a happy parade,” I said. “And I can’t imagine that a military parade has much of a party atmosphere, what with guns, and tanks, and rocket launchers, and weapons of mass destruction and whatever else you expect at a military parade, is exactly a party.”
   “Well, you don’t really know, because the Trump parade hasn’t taken place, has it?” Cat said. “I’m betting there won’t be any weapons of mass destruction, just weapons of moderate destruction.”
   “But that’s all there will be, just military things and soldiers,” I said. “It’s the symbolism.”
   “Symbolism?” Cat said.
   “That the military-type parades are the kind they have in North Korea and Russia,” I said. “They are meant to scare the bejezzus out of everyone. Dictator parades. Do as I say.”

CREDIT: Daily Mail

    “TRUMP ISN'T a dictator,” Cat said.
   “But he acts like he wants to be one,” I said, “calling the press the ‘Enemy of the People,’, firing people at the White House when they don’t agree with everything he says, insulting the courts and judges, sucking up to Putin, making everything about him, not doing anything about Russian messing with elections.”
   “Cat,” I continued, before he could get in any of his lame thoughts, “all you have to do is look at the pictures of the North Korean parades, with acres of goose-stepping soldiers, doing exactly what they are told. And you can just imagine Trump reviewing his military thing, looking for all the world just like Kim Jong Un at one of his parades: I AM the commander-in-chief. I’ll fire Bob Mueller and march him in chains down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

CREDIT: The White House

   “THEN BACK to my question: I still don't see why you don’t you get upset with mind the military units in the St. Patrick’s Day parade?” Cat said.
   “Because they are part of the community,” I said. “They belong, along with all the other parts, the Scouts, clowns, the band from a nightclub, people from churches, men and women dressed in Colonial costumes, and my new best friend, the big pirate, the big, shiny truck from the local bio-diesel company.”
   “Personally," Cat said," I’d rather see a good old M1A1 Abrams tank, with a 120 mm smoothbore cannon and CBRN protection system, than some bio-diesel truck hauling grease from restaurant Fryolators."
    “What did you say?” I barked at him. “You aren’t challenging me on this, are you, Cat?”
   “I said: ‘I catch your drift, Chief,’ ” Cat replied.
   “Good,” I said to him. “Because if there’s one thing I won’t tolerate is disagreement.”
   “No argument here,” said Cat. “I’m just trying to keep the peace.”
   “See that you do,” I said.

CREDIT: AP via Bloomberg

DAY 419

3/14/2018

A POSITIVELY GREAT DAY ON TRUMP'S TRAIL

   WE RECENTLY PROMISED you that from now on we’ll do our best to focus on the positive, instead of simply dwelling on the zillion negative ways in which Donald J. Trump’s presidency increases the odds of nuclear war, weakens chances of saving our environment, tells four to five lies a day, degrades our culture, encourages racism and generally disgraces the traditions and promises of American democracy.
   Today seems as good as any to give “positive” its due.
   For one thing, the Blizzard of ’18 was yesterday. Today has been one of those great day-after-the-storm times when the sun is bright, the snow clean and soft, the wind speed is zero, the power is on, the trees and shrubbery are wrapped in with gleaming snow and ice.
    (Cat says to mention that Newport was the only place in Rhode Island to officially experience official blizzard conditions, which is when it’s snowing so hard for at least three hours that you can’t see more than a quarter mile and the wind is a howling 35 miles an hour or better. Not that we were aware that was happening.)
Anyway, today was great day for a dog who’s part Husky to romp and roll in a foot of snow, run around the backyard like a mad dog, chew up sticks knocked to the ground by the wind and generally bury her head in a snowbank. In other words, it’s a perfect time to completely forget about Donald Fucking Trump for 15 minutes.
   Not that Cat or I are recommending head-in-the-snow denial. We know the nation and the world are in crisis and that we have to pay attention to every awful thing that is happening today, has happened since the inauguration and will happen every day until Trump exits the White House and we can change the locks.
But consider the volume of good POSITIVE news going on right now!

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS CONDUCT A NATIONAL
COURSE IN DEMOCRACY

TODAY WAS THE DAY that thousands of students across the country left their classrooms to honor the 17 people murdered on Valentine’s Day at a Florida high school, and to push for real solutions to gun violence, not inane ideas, like arming teachers, janitors, principals and grounds crews in the fine arts of school shootouts.

   Nobody can argue that these kids don’t have a right to say they’d rather not be murdered for the misdemeanor of showing up for class.
   The survivors of the last huge shooting in Connecticut were elementary students when their classmates and teachers were slaughtered in 2012, so they could be ignored because, while cute, they were so young.
   But the high school teenagers at Parkland, Florida who survived the shooting a month ago are savvy, smart and articulate, and instantly they knew how to seize the moment, to lead a national movement that gun culture has to change, and to make simple point like military weapons are best left to the Marines, and that guns should be treated along the lines of what’s required to drive a car.
Also, memo to Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of “education,” who has been doing her best to wreck public schools, but flunked her oral exams on “60 Minutes” last Sundays:
   The folks who are running the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. have obviously been doing something spectacular with their students, who seem to have pick up a thing or two about rewriting history.

WHEN IT COMES TO
TORTURE: JUST SAY NO

   EVEN AS LOWLY domesticated creatures, Cat and I have some pretty definite opinions on people who drown, beat, scare and otherwise abuse bodies, human and otherwise, so we welcome the resistance that emerged today to confirming Gina Haspel as Trump’s would-be next director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
News accounts immediately dredged up Haspel’s record, going back to the bad old days after 9/11 when the CIA tortured suspected terrorists. According to the Washington Post:
Haspel ran one of the first CIA black sites, a compound in Thailand code-named “Cat’s Eye,” where al-Qaeda suspects Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaida, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were subjected to waterboarding and other techniques in 2002.
Later, Haspel passed on orders from a superior that video tapes of the torture sessions be destroyed.
   Democrats, including Rhode Island’s Sen. Jack Reed, yesterday were questioning Haspel’s nomination, and Republican Senator Rand Paul said he’ll actually vote against her.
There’s a hitch, though.
   Media know-it-alls were pointing out that Haspel, as a CIA veteran, might run the spook agency professionally and would be less likely than a political flunky to cave into Trump’s looney demands. You might remember Trump’s often stated fondness for torture….
Some things are complicated.

A SHOUT-OUT
TO THE NICE ONE

CAT AND I ARE pleased to see that a letter-to-the-editor by the Nice One was published in our local paper, the Newport Daily News, urging resistance to a Rhode Island budget proposal to charge co-pays to some people who receive Medicaid health care.
As usual, the Nice One was right on the money in pointing out that Medicaid is a program for POOR people. And, while she didn’t put it exactly this way: even a simple dog and an even simpler cat know that poor people don’t have much MONEY.
So asking them to fork over $4 for a prescription or $3 for a doctor’s visit is as pointless as it is cruel.

Just one of the many reasons that Cat and Phoebe know why she’s considered the Nice One around these parts.
And here’s hoping that her message reaches the many other nice people we know are out there.

So, in closing, Cat and I had one heck of a positive day.
And trust that you did, too.

A "sweet dog" confronts the catastrophe of the Trump presidency

The Tracker

PHOEBE might have remained a “sweet” and apolitical dog but for the Trump crisis. Now, like millions of Americans, she wrestles daily with the challenge of what to do about it. With no illusions about the impact, she founded and is the principal writer of the Tracking Trump blog.

In Memoriam

CAT, a cat and Libertarian was Phoebe's co-author. He died Nov. 14, 2019. His self-described role was to leaven Phoebe’s naiveté and idealism with “common sense." He is remembered and missed.

DAY 429

Letter from Vermont LISTENINGTO KIDS, RETHINKING GUNS

Day 424

WHICH PARADE WILL WE MARCH IN:ST. PATRICK'S?OR D. TRUMP'S?

DAY ﻿419